Yes, and sharp. Very sharp. They also incorporated very elaborate techniques, and the entire design is to be versitile. Against heavy armour, the longsword was used for the sake of thrusting between the gaps in the plate armour at the neck, armpits, groin, and other joints. See, most knights wore chainmail under this, but the longsword's sharp point allowed it to penetrate most forms of chainmail. Unlike other thrusting swords of it's age, however, the longsword was still more than capable of cutting slashes, which made it proficient to use against lightly armoured opponents as well.

You don't know **** . The katana has a slower recovery between swings when compared to the longsword, which on average weighed the same as the Katana. This is because the katana's point of balance is further down the blade, closer to the tip. Makes the katana have more cutting power, but makes it slower.

Few things here,
Katanas were never made to do that, you're supposed to cut more gently because the curvature of the blade means a lot of flesh is exposed to a slash at once, leaving long bleeding wounds, this means less force is required
Also that Broadsword is strapped in place meaning a lot of the stress on the broadsword can be lost through the mounting

It has nothing to do with that. In japan Iron is much more scarce than in Europe. Thus their armor in Japan could not be as reliant on Metal as it was in Europe. With less metal in armor it means you dont need as heavy a blade, which means you can prioritize cutting rather than bludgeoning or piercing. The reality is that if a late medieval knight from Germany were to fight a Samurai from a similar time period the Knight would win. It has nothing to do with skill, or with tradition or the objective quality of their equipment. The Japanese two handed sword would literally break on the knights armor before hurting the knight.

They are both products of their environments. The best you can say of the Japanese Long sword is that they did a lot with very little metal, and were some of the most well crafted weapons from that period of time. Comparing them to a European knight sword in terms of its utilitarian properties is pointless without keeping in mind cultural constraints. In Europe they had to deal with much more metal based armor meaning they could not have elegant blades with minimal metal in the blade, in Japan the opposite was true and having a blade be strong light and extremely sharp was the priority. A cut is a cut if anything a blunter weapon is much worse of a cut because its much harder to stitch because you will have ripping and tearing but thats an aside.

Uhh, having it strapped in place actually means you have two fulcrums with an ideal "bend point" between them. It's why you hold a stick at both ends when you break it over your knee. If anything, it sets the blade up to be more stressed than it usually would be (eg. held at one end).

The point of this test was to compare the durability. The .gif does not show this, but they followed up with testing a longsword against the same broadsword, still strapped to the same block, which resulted in the broadsword shattering. The test was in no ways fair, and far from scientific, but even though I'm an adovate of the longsword and will go to hell to combat anyone who believes in "Durrr Katana best weapon, cut through tank with glorious nippon powers", I also believe that the full story must be brought forth in any discussion.

Im actually part of my state kendo team. and that sword gets bent because everything in the technique is wrong.
hitting with the wrong part, too much strength on that cut.
also you should never block or hit 2 swords edge to edge. with katanas you deflect, never block same with fencing, escrima and almost every sword fighting style.

Katanas are designed so that, in a fight, they would glance off each other instead of hitting directly. If two katanas were to strike each other directly, like longswords are designed to do, they would most likely damage themselves.

Japanese smiths spend years working on a single katana and fold it up to a million times to produce the finest blades known to mankind.
Katanas are thrice as sharp as European swords and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a longsword can cut through, a katana can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a katana could easily bisect a knight wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.
Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their katanas of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the katanas first because their killing power was feared and respected.

Are you ******* retarded? The katana was designed to cut through flesh, not steel. Japan never had all that much steel to begin with, so they primarily fought unarmoured. Only the very rich lords could afford full armour, and then it was just a wierd style of scale mail or splinted armour. The main martial art for the katana is (i think) Iaido, which is designed for use against a lightly armoured opponent. Against a knight in plate steel, the katana would be blunted immediately, if not shattered. Ugh. ******* weeb piece of **** .

You do know that the only (it not the only, the first) time the samurai fought western forces the got there asses handed to them. Seach for "1582 Cagayan Battles".
40 spanish marines defeat 1000 japanese pirates (most of them ronin in full armour and armed with katanas).
And I simply cant express how much you underestimate the quality of a Toledo steel rapier and the skills of the spanish swordsman.
Katanas and samurais are way to overrated.

Archery was the main element of combat for the samurais .Kendo and jujitsu came into considerate play later when there were gifht in Japan between the various clans and kingdoms so both soldiers were trained and armoured samurai and not samurai vs villager with farming tool as weapon . I am not supporting anyone on the dis wepon iz betar war I just wanted to clear that up

Poured steel wins against folded steel every time. The Japanese had to fold their blades because it was the only way they could figure out how to work around impurities in the metal and still get a thin blade. Europeans just said, " **** that noise, we'll just make our blades half an inch thick and indestructible!"

It's the difference between ramming a building with a B2 stealth bomber vs. ramming a building with a freight train. No matter how you slice it, that train's still going to be in mostly one piece on the other side.

European medieval longswords were in fact rather blunt, relying mostly on the weight of the blade to cause crushing blows. Also the primary factor preventing medieval Europeans from conquering Japan was that it wasn't discovered by the west until 1542.

Ok, so think about the logic.
You are gonna pay for a knight's equipment. First, you spend several grands on a propper set of plate armour. Then, you pay a few hundred buying a shield. Now, if the longsword, as you said, was blunt, why would you use it? Especialy considering that maces, warhammers and axes were not only cheaper, but also a LOT more effective at crushing blows.

Finaly there are several medieval sword manuals made by master swordsmen who describe longsword sharpness as "a carving knife".

I'm just tiered of katana faggots going "Glorious folded nippon steel cut through tank with the fury of my loli moe superior manga", so my tolerance for this kind of stuff has died out.

If you really wanna learn about swords, and other weapons in general, I recomend you head over to Skallagrim's youtube channel. He does sparring, sword/knife analyzations, gun tests, and a few other things. I have, personaly, stayed away from his political videos, so I don't know weather those hold the autism of a bilion missing chromosones or not. Never the less, he does know his swords, and he presents his lectures in an entertaining, personalized way.

As much as I admire the visuals and use of a katana, I am aware that they're not Infinitely dense god-crushers, and people need to understand that while entertaining and exciting, anime is not a historical resource.

I thumbed you up not because that was funny, because I've seen the joke a million times, and it's really not funny anymore.

I thumbed you up solely because every other idiot that actually replied to you has, apparently, never seen that joke before, and actually thought you were serious, in spite of the fact that it's the better part of a decade old at this point, and gets made at least once a week on /tg/.

if you can smelt the metal ypu can fold it japan doesnt hold htat right for it self though i like htep oeple thinking this it sort of smart ass who think russia beat usa in written utsalcrap oh thye used pencil while the usa spent million on it illinformed smartass are the best